The Police Colonel, at whose property 8.5 billion rubles were found, told the backstory and explained the reason for his arrest.

Dmitry Zakharchenko exposed his own version of the events preceding his arrest to the publication Moskovsky Komsomolets which received it from the predetention facility through his lawyers.

According to the former Deputy Head of the Department T of the Russian MIA Main Directorate for Economic Safety and Counteracting Corruption, he quickly moved up the career ladder. Due to the large number of successful case and criminals brought to responsibility (including those who belong to the Forbes top hundred list), Zakharchenko has grown significantly in the service in just 9 months after the scandal with the General Sugrobov.

"When Denis Sugrobov was removed, all the employees of the Directorate were mercilessly inspected. Many of them were fired and I kept working, because I demonstrated the best results in the Directorate", Zakharchenko said.

The Colonel said that his motivation and meteoric career resulted in a large number of enemies he made, including the FSB. Therefore, as before, Zakharchenko explains his detention by the targeted FSB operation.

Photo: The former Head of the Russian MIA Main Directorate for Economic Safety and Counteracting Corruption Denis Sugrobov

According to the Colonel, he was gunned for because he was the leading candidate for the post of the Department T Head, whose duties he temporarily performed before the detention. And the FSB Department M supervising the work of the MIA planned to place their own man on this post.

Regarding the charges of taking bribes, Zakharchenko still strongly holds his ground: he did not take a bribe, he was in the cafe with an old friend Anatoly Pshegornitsky. The fact that they were close friends was also confirmed by the Colonel's wife Marina.

"They came up with the bribe because it was necessary to arrest me but "general protection" and "hindering conduct" would not let them do it. And then it all comes off: the arrest, trial, and journalists. The money is not mine, and I am no one charges me with anything associated with this money. They simply create a negative background around me", Zakharchenko said.

"In my apartment on the Michurinsky Avenue they did not find anything. We arrived at the second apartment - on Leninsky Prospekt, it belongs to my father, but I have been never there – and I could not even show the door when we went up to the 5th floor.

I was taken to an armored door. They began to force open it. It was 6 p.m. I said, "Do not break it. Father will come to Moscow from Rostov soon and will open the door for you and you will enter with no fuss." They kept smashing it anyway. Only at three o'clock in the morning, they managed to break it, although at 5 the father has already arrived. They walked in and found nothing. And when we were in the apartment, one of the operatives announced that in an apartment in building 25 on the Lomonosov Avenue a huge amount of money was found. I said it seems to be the flat of my stepsister Irina – my mother’s daughter – whom I had not seen for 1.5 years", the now former policeman explained.

The Russian society, according to the survey data recently released by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center, does not believe in Zakharchenko’s innocence. Only 1% of the more than a thousand respondents interviewed expressed the opinion that the money seized from the Colonel was merely planted there. 59% believe that the huge amounts of money the policeman earned by embezzlement and bribery.

However, on October 11, a fact transpired that could somehow change the public opinion.

A source in the law enforcement told Life that the investigation has the records from surveillance cameras on the building at the Lomonosov Avenue, in which 8.5 billion rubles mainly in foreign currency have been found. According to the footage, Zakharchenko’s sister and father bring huge bags in Irina Razgunova’s apartment. As it can be seen from the recording, the process of transporting a ton of notes took them not less than a week. At that, some time after the Colonel’s arrest by the FSB, the investigators had a conversation with Irina Razgunova. Then, she said she had recently been in the apartment and had not seen any money there. She also said that Dmitry Zakharchenko was not aware of the fact that apartment in the residential complex Dominion belongs to her, nor did he know its exact address.

The investigators intend to meet again with Razgunova, who is abroad now, according to the MK.

The origin of money seized in a car which the Colonel used by proxy, he explained by the fact that its owner sold the house in Sochi and "left the money in the glovebox." Earlier, it was reported that in the car, in which Zakharchenko was detained, 13 million rubles, 5 thousand euro and 170 thousand dollars were found. This amount of money can not fit in the glove box.

A lawyer Yuri Novikov commented for the MK on the situation about the 8.5 billion rubles found in Razgunova’s apartment from the legal point of view. According to him, the investigation has no evidence that the money is ill-gotten. Article 20 of the Convention on Corruption, which provides for the confiscation of a large amount of money from the state employee, if he cannot explain its origin, does not apply in Russia. Accordingly, the criminal liability for illegal possession of money cannot be imposed either.

The detention of the MIA Colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko, who is charged under three articles of the Criminal Code, became one of the most resonant anti-corruption cases in recent years.

The policeman is suspected of involvement in a number of serious crimes from the protection racket of contracting schemes related to withdrawal of money from the Russian Railways to banking scams. The investigators and the media have several theories about the origin of the money discovered in the apartment of his sister. The former Acting Head of the Department T does not accept any of the charges and keeps insisting on his innocence.